


5 Sentence Fics - Quatre Winner

by lil_1337



Series: Five sentence fics [4]
Category: Gundam Wing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-20
Updated: 2006-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-06 12:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_1337/pseuds/lil_1337





	5 Sentence Fics - Quatre Winner

#01 – Goodbye

One of the greatest regrets of Quatre’s life is that he never got the chance to say a proper goodbye to his father. To tell him that even though he disagreed with his father’s decision not to act that Quatre respected him and what he stood for. He understands now that in many ways they were the same. Strong willed, principled and prepared to die for their ideals. He hoped that wherever he is his father is as proud of him as he is of the legacy of the name he carries. 

#02 – Sundown

Quatre has never been a big believer in the Muslim faith that his family practices. After fighting in two wars he has found himself even less willing to be able to accept the idea of a supreme being who loves humanity as his children. He has however adapted the idea of stopping and praying at sundown to fit his own particular way of dealing with the world. Every evening as the sun begins to dip below the horizon he makes two mental lists. One is of all the things he has accomplished that day and the other is of the people he is grateful to have in his life. 

#03 - Blue skies

Though he has lived on the Earth for several years now Quatre still finds himself being awed by nature. Something a simple as a thunderstorm that fades away to reveal blue skies and a freshly washed landscape is not to be taken for granted but to observed and appreciated. 

One of Duo’s favorite memories is finding Quatre standing on the steps of headquarters holding a gold and red leaf in his hands, turning it this way and that. Studying it intently and almost reverently as if he held in his hands the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Duo suspects if he had asked instead of watching his friend silently that Quatre would have said it was. 

#04 - Broken wing

Feeling the emotions of others had always been a burden and blessing at the same time for Quatre. Never more so then when Heero stepped out on the platform of his Gundam and pressed the button to self-destruct. Pain ripped through Quatre as he watched Heero fall to lie, still as death among the broken pieces of Wing. The calm acceptance of Trowa was a balm on his tortured soul. Soothing the burning pain of loss with respect for the decision and honoring the price that was paid. 

#05 - High octane

While he definitely does not miss the horrors of war there are times when Quatre feels a longing for the high-octane thrill of piloting Sandrock. When the need hits he gets into his silver jaguar with the high performance engine that was purchased just for this purpose and pushes it to its limits. As he pulls out of the garage the first thing he does is call Duo and Trowa and challenge them to a race. The winner buys the beer and the loser dinner. He then spends the rest of the night arguing that just because his name is Winner does not mean he should have to pick up the not inconsiderable tab. 

#06 - Silver and gold

“Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold.” Quatre raised his glass and toasted the group of people gathered around the table. “Thank you to each and every one of you for being the true wealth in my life.” Smiling happily at the murmurs of here here and the clink of crystal against crystal he took a sip of his wine to seal the toast. 

#07 - Too good to be true

Watching fairy tales is something that has never appealed to Quatre. As the Winner heir he is all too aware that the too good to be true lifestyle of being a prince or princess is just that. As far as he is concerned the closest thing he’s had to a fairy godmother is Rashid. He did not wave a magic wand and make Quatre’s life perfect and happy. In fact he challenged Quatre to find his own path and by following it create his own happiness and value as a human being.

#08 - Tangled and dark

Two or three times a week Quatre will wake up in the early hours of the morning from a nightmare. Shaken and disoriented from the tangled and dark images stamped on his psyche. Some nights it is his father, others it is the faces of the people h he killed. Occasionally he sees himself firing the beam cannon and watches again as the Vayate explodes. Those nights he does not even try to go back to sleep, needing instead to get up and make a vid phone call to reassure himself. 

#09 - Best served cold

As a general rule Quatre tries not to give into the need for revenge. He feels that doing so creates an escalating cycle that is difficult to end. However when the other pilots along with Zechs and Noin disassembled his car and then reassembled it in the lobby of headquarters he took off the gloves. One by one they fell victim to his pranks. Being the strategist he saved Duo for last, torturing him by doing absolutely nothing. 

#10 - Running on empty

 

Quatre knows that when he is working on a project he will get engrossed, often to the point of ignoring hunger pains in favor of finishing just one more thing. He makes sure to set his watch alarm to chime every six hours to remind him to eat. Unfortunately the same intense focus also means he dismisses the alarm. Invariably five to ten minutes after he has turned it off and gone back to work one of the other pilots, usually Duo will appear at his elbow and inform him its meal time. That is one alarm he can’t turn off or ignore. 

#11 - Slow hand

/I need a lover with a slow hand. I need a lover with an easy touch./ 

The music swirled around them as Quatre spun Relena on the dance floor of their favorite pizza place. He always jumped at her invitations to ‘get away from this crap for a while’ and just go out and be the young people they are for a while. He treasures his good fortune in having a friend who understands not only the pressures of being part of a powerful family but the tragic consequences that it can lead to. 

#12 - Double vision

The first time Quatre met all of his sisters he felt like he was experiencing double or triple vision with a surreal element of déjà vu. Even now years later after making the effort to spend time with each one of them and their families individually he still has the occasional slip and calls someone by the wrong name. For the most part they take such things in stride because of their upbringing. The twins actively go out of their way to try to confused him just for their own sense of amusement. As a result he intentionally calls them by the incorrect name. 

#13 - Paradise

Ever since his first glimpse of Earth Quatre has felt that it is a paradise. He is able to find something awe inspiring about every climate and environment he has visited. There was a stark, haunting quality to the snow covered Mountains of Switzerland and the jungles of South America were so filled with life it was impossible to see it all. But the single thing that has touched him the most and draws him with a pull he cannot resist is the ocean. His need to be by the water is so strong that Trowa teases him that it and his fair hair are proof there was elfin blood somewhere in the Winner family line. 

#14 - In the dark

As a strategist Quatre feels the more information he has the better he is able to make decisions of any kind. He adheres to Duo’s philosophy of ‘if I was supposed to be kept in the dark and fed bullshit I would have been born a mushroom.’ His friends know that as painful as the complete and honest facts might be they are much more appreciated than sugar coating and platitudes. This is why after having spent a month trying to grow a beard and moustache and achieving a mere sprinkling of facial hair Quatre came to work one day and found a razor with a bow taped to it on his desk. The card was signed by all the pilots and simply said, “Shave it.” 

#15 - Personal space

While Quatre is physically affectionate often hugging or touching the person he is speaking with he is also very aware of where people are in relation to him. There are very people who can get close to him without causing him to tense if only momentarily. He can count on one hand the number of people who he trusts enough to fall asleep in their presence. Much to his personal distress he is not able to stop himself from reacting whenever Dorothy steps within the boundaries of his personal space. A reaction that is much more intense if Trowa is close enough to see because of the empathic backlash he gets. 

#16 - Stormy weather

Most people are surprised to find that while Quatre loves classical music he has a weakness for jazz and blues. He prefers to listen to it then to play, but occasionally after a beer or two he will let himself get talked into it. This style of music he insists was born at and made to be played by the piano, so the violin will not do it justice. When the first few notes for “Stormy Weather” sound Trowa will smile and raise his flute to play along. Thunder to Quatre’s lightning. 

#17 - Wax paper

Between the pages of a large encyclopedia Quatre keeps a rose he pressed between two pieces of wax paper. It is old and crumbling. The red hue now a velvety black. When he is asked who it is from he just smiles but refuses to tell. However the fact that it can be found between the pages describing Heavyarms and Sandrock is rather telling.

#18 - Sentimental journey

At least once a year Quatre takes some time off and goes to visit the Maganacs village. He made sure to attend Abdul’s wedding and the christening of Auda’s first son. He’s always welcomed with open arms and a festival worthy of a returning hero. No matter how many times he walks through the gates he is always taken back to the day he and Duo arrived there under the cover of a sandstorm. While L4 belongs to the Winners this humble town will always feel like home. 

#19 - Perfect balance

One of the things that Quatre admires about Trowa is his perfect sense of balance. Many times he has stood on the roof of headquarters and watched as Trowa made the circuit around on the ledge. He’s seen Trowa traverse the outline of the building in the dark, in the rain, and during high winds with never so much as a hesitation or a slip. There is a part of Quatre that wishes he could join Trowa on those treks. And another part of him that is perfectly content to just watch and appreciate from afar.

#20 - No worries

“You worry too much, Q” 

“My father use to tell me that the only time you would have no worries was when you were dead.” 

“That’s depressing as hell. I think we need a beer… or six.” 

“You’re on, just let me get my coat.” 

#21 - Chasing the wind

Some days Quatre feels that trying to maintain peace is like chasing the wind. He can see its effects all around him, feel how it touches him yet he can not touch it in return. If he follows it might lead him to new and strange places or turn on its heel and take him home. Some times it disappears completely and he feels as if he is stifling, mired in paper work and bureaucracy. Other times it is gale force and he is bowled over by the momentous changes being wrought. 

#22 - Blown away

When Quatre turned twenty-one all his friends got together and took him out to a local pub to celebrate his newly achieved adult status. There was beer and food. Then more beer, pool and dancing. When they settled him on Trowa’s couch that night he was blown away from the kindness and love shown to him. He was much less impressed by their generosity when he arrived at headquarters, hung over, the next morning to discover his boxers flying at half-mast on the flagpole. 

#23 - Crusade

More than once Quatre, along with Relena has painted as being on a crusade for one cause or another. Whether it is a positive or negative thing depends on the political slant of the person writing the article or doing the newscast. If asked he will happily clarify his stance on any given issue, but has long since stopped trying to correct the media. In his opinion if you want to know what someone believes you should ask him or her face to face, not accept someone else’s word for it. After what he seen Quatre views politics and the media are like shopping, buyer beware. 

#24 - In chaos

Most people who have met Quatre and Trowa are surprised when they see their office and realize the desk that looks like a bomb exploded on it belongs to Quatre. His neat personal appearance does not lend itself to the visual of a man who prefers his workplace to be in a perpetual state of chaos. When questioned about it Quatre just smiles and says he knows where everything is and this is how he is. He always has the report or information he needs right at his fingertips so Lady Une has written it off as just another eccentricity and ignores the mess. Quatre knows that it is actually strategy as Heero’s clean desk implies he is not busy and as a result he often falls prey to the higher ups looking for someone to foster another assignment off on. 

#25 - Rising tide

Quatre stared at the rising tide of paperwork, picturing his partner walking in the next morning to find him drowned under the mass, one arm sticking up as he went down for the third time. The visual along with limited sleep and the far side of a caffeine buzz left him breathless with hysterical laughter. He was still snickering when Heero found him two hours later, surrounded by empty coffee cups. When he tried to explain what was so funny Heero frowned at him and shook his head in confusion. Soon after that Preventers started serving decaffeinated coffee along with regular in the cafeteria.


End file.
